Huskies Falter Against Marquette, 73-69

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STORRS, CONN. (January 10, 2007) – Jerel McNeal scored 19 points to lead three teammates in double-figure scoring and Marquette used a late 12-0 run as the Golden Eagles defeated the University of Connecticut’s men’s basketball team, 73-69, Wednesday evening before a sellout crowd of 10,167 at the Harry A. Gampel Pavilion.

The loss drops the Huskies’ record to 12-3, 1-2 in the BIG EAST Conference, while the Golden Eagles improve to 14-4, 1-2 in the league. Tonight’s defeat marks UConn’s first back-to-back losses since Feb. 9 and 15, 2004 and the first at home in 32 games, dating back to Feb. 13, 2005, against North Carolina.

Connecticut trailed by just two at 50-48 with nine minutes remaining, but was held scoreless for the next four and a half minutes as Marquette seized control of the contest.  Ousmane Barro started the Golden Eagle run with a pair of free throws, and added three other points in the decisive spurt.  Dominic James had five points in the run, and when it was over, Marquette had scored a dozen points and the lead was 14, 62-48, with 4:36 to play.

The Huskies, who struggled to score throughout the contest, came to life offensively late in the game scoring 16 points in the final 1:15 in a furious flurry.  Freshman guard Doug Wiggins (East Hartford, Conn.) hit two three-pointers among his late eight points, but the Huskies could get no closer than the final margin of four.

Wiggins led the Huskies with 19 points, with 15 coming after intermission.  Sophomore forward Jeff Adrien (Brookline, Mass.) was the key offensive catalyst in the opening twenty minutes, scoring 11 of his 18 points.  Sophomore guard Craig Austrie (Stamford, Conn.) had 10 points off of the bench.

McNeal led a balanced attack for Marquette as Barro and James each scored 17 points.  Barro was particularly troublesome for Connecticut, grabbing a game-high 13 rebounds, including seven on the offensive end.  Wesley Matthews chipped in with 10 points and eight rebounds. 

The first half was an unsightly affair as the teams combined to commit 25 turnovers, and neither team shot better than 40 percent from the field.  Marquette settled for a 32-28 lead, but Connecticut bolted from the gate to start the second half as Adrien hit a jumper from the paint and Hasheem Thabeet (Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania) made a quick three-point play off of a pretty pass from Marcus Johnson (Los Angeles, Calif.) to give the Huskies a 33-32 lead.   Barro answered with a lay-up and the Golden Eagles were never headed again.

Connecticut shot just 32 percent from the field, and were out-rebounded (50-39) for the first time this season. 

The Huskies will take to the road for a mini two-game road trip that starts Saturday evening at Madison Square Garden against St. John’s.  Tip-off is set for 9:30 p.m. and the contest will be televised by CW-20 and the MSG Network.  The road trip concludes on Tuesday, Jan. 16 when the Huskies travel to play at Pittsburgh.

POSTGAME QUOTES

UConn Head Coach Jim Calhoun

Congratulations to Tom Crean.  I thought his team came in here and handed it to us physically….We just didn’t play well.  We kind of got physically handled for the second game in a row.  It’s very discouraging to us.

For two games in a row, we had the will of another team imposed upon us.

I thought our big guys…I’m very reluctant to have the guys look at some of the plays they made or didn’t make.  It wasn’t the kind of basketball you like to see, when you keep throwing the ball and ball keeps getting lost.  Conversely, our guards couldn’t go buy people.  So, it was a team effort.

I thought we defended pretty well.

But we can’t score right now.  And I don’t know where those answers are coming from.

I thought we had a bad shoot-around today.  We came in unfocused tonight.

Focus is a problem.  Our kid haven’t developed into the kind of team, yet, that they are anywhere near capable of being.

Right now I still think that we can be good, but we’re going to have to be tougher, we’re going to have to execute better, and we’re going to have to make a couple of layups occasionally when we have them.  There were a ton of shots in the paint that we turned into some very strange plays.  Some of the stuff I had never seen before.

UConn Sophomore Jeff Adrien

We’re just not playing together…

I felt like there were only a couple of guys that were excited to play.  I trieed to get them ready to play but it didn’t work.

On leadership on the team

I just try and do my best out there.  I try to do my best out there and help each other, help my teammates.

On trying to solve Marquette’s zone

In the zone, you have to go inside out, and we really didn’t go inside out.  If we

UConn Sophomore Craig Austrie

We have to do what Coach Calhoun wants us to do and really execute.

Early on, we missed shots that we normally knock down.  We weren’t  hitting shots.  It picked up toward the end – we started hitting shots.  But early we weren’t hitting shots.

On Saturday’s game at St. John’s

We are looking at St. John’s as a must win.

UConn Freshman Doug Wiggins

We have so much talent on the team, and we’re wondering what’s stopping us from running our offense.  I don’t really think it’s so much the opposing team as it’s us right now.

We not coming off screens properly.  We’re not setting good screens.  It’s all the little things right now.

We’re eager to get to practice tomorrow.   We’re far from where we want to be right now.  We just have to come together.

It was more about us tonight.  We missed some shots and had a couple of mental lapses.

UConn Freshman Curtis Kelly

As far as us being young, it really doesn’t matter.  We just need to work on some things and stay together as a family.  I think we’ll be fine.

Marquette played really well.  They read their assignment well.   We just came up short.

Marquette Head Coach Tom Crean

We have such respect for the University of Connecticut, the way they’re coached, certainly, the way that they play, what they stand for.  There was no way we could come in here without trying to match that intensity, that emotion and being aggressive.  For us to win the game, we had to do a great job of getting back on defense, which I thought we did, because of their fastbreak.  We were able to rebound with them and eventually go over the top in the rebound margin, which I thought was crucial.  And for us, it was shot selection.  We turned it over too many times in the first half, but we settled down with that in the second half. 

They have great athletes and players that are continuing to get better all the time, just like we do.  Two very, very young teams.

This was a win that our guys really earned.  It’s been a tough few days.

This was a great first step for us in the conference.